


you'd take control so easily

by notlucy



Series: Give a Little, Take a Little [4]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, Cock & Ball Torture, Descriptions of various sex acts, Electricity, Kink Negotiation, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Pining, Praise Kink, Sex Work, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Whipping, discussions of kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-26 21:44:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18725572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notlucy/pseuds/notlucy
Summary: Steve thinks about Bucky a lot. Because Bucky checks the boxes. Ticks the dick. Makes Steve want someone in a way he hasn’t wanted anyone for a long time, and doesn’t that just scare the shit out of him?





	you'd take control so easily

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Steve gives some details about his time with other clients in this story. He's also invited into one of Natasha's sessions. Nothing excessive, but giving folks a heads up. Also, this won't make much sense if you haven't read the other bits.

Steve thinks about Bucky a lot.

Thinks about him when he’s at home, standing under the tepid stream of water falling from the groaning pipes of his slumlord shower as he beats one out before starting the day.

Thinks about him during class while fighting with the ancient computers that line the walls of the optimistically named “technology lab.”

Thinks about him at job number one, running to art supply stores in the interest of so-called life experience, trading his time in the shop for _time_ in the shop.

Thinks about him at job number two as he’s loading a pile of sweat and cum-stained towels into the rusty washing machine that hangs out in the back corner of the break room.

Thinks about him while he’s whipping the hide off one of his regulars—a stockbroker named Bill who’s into wearing panties and suspenders while Steve works him over—pausing to crack the muscles in his neck before laying down a fresh stripe. Bill moans, and Steve can’t help thinking he doesn’t moan half so pretty as Bucky does. Doesn’t take a hit half so well, either.

Although, Steve likes Bill, who pays Steve to treat him like shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe. To rub his face into the floor beneath the heel of the biker boots Bill requests during their scenes. To make him grovel and crawl, begging for forgiveness over some never-said crime.

Bill's not bad. He's not self-hating, he's respectful, and he tips well. He's into humiliation and pain, and he's doesn't like a lot of coddling after.

He’s a job. Steve’s his fantasy. That’s all.

Bucky, though? Bucky’s something else.

Steve wishes he could put his finger on what it is about him, this kid who came from nowhere and left Steve asking where he’d been all his life.

Because Bucky inspires cliches in Steve’s heretofore cynical brain with his combination of innocence and depravity. Bucky checks the boxes. Ticks the dick. Makes Steve want him in a way he hasn’t wanted anyone in a long time, and doesn’t that just scare the shit out of him?

Never in his life has Steve offered free scenes—not when he’s the one who’s paying a fee for the use of the room—nor has he ever taken more than a passing friendly interest in his clients. Sure, he knows things: Bill-has-two-kids, Matt-has-a-dog, Anika-has-student-debt, and Rachel-is-getting-married. But those things are just facts. Casual pieces of conversation tossed off at the end of a scene, water bottle clutched between trembling hands as whoever he just took apart pulls themselves back together again.

Bucky, though? Bucky upends all of that, with his good boy games and mile-wide praise kink. Steve can't figure it out, and he's given up trying because spending too much time thinking is what'll get him into trouble. All he knows is that Bucky kicked down every one of Steve's self-imposed boundaries without meaning to the first time he started spouting off about _maintenance_.

So yeah. Steve thinks about Bucky a lot.

And the stuff he knows about Bucky? That doesn’t come from casual conversation. It comes from the fact that Steve’s spoken to Bucky on the phone. Heard his mother’s voice. Texted him at all hours.

Googled him.

Steve’s not proud of that last one, but the fact is that Bucky—trusting, new-to-all-this Bucky—sent his very first email from the address bbarnes@cmail.com.

And Bucky Barnes is not a common name.

To Steve’s (minimal) credit, he held off searching until the Monday after their second session, when he’d taken Bucky down with a riding crop and a few well-placed hands. Shit, the way Bucky had looked as he came—how he’d gone all slack and sweet, staring at Steve like he’d hung the moon. Like he’d do _anything_ for him.

Steve could get used to that.

Which is how he ends up sitting home alone in his apartment, ignoring the four dead pixels on the screen of the battered MacBook he’s had since college, typing “Bucky Barnes” into the search bar.

The first thing that comes up is a not-at-all-locked down Facebook page. Followed by an Instagram. A LinkedIn account. A Twitter that hasn’t been touched since November of 2016.

Steve clicks. Opens multiple tabs. Learns things while feeling like a marginal creeper. But hey, what's social media for, if not being social? Bucky's the one with the open accounts.

According to LinkedIn, Bucky works for an engineering consulting firm. Steve visits their website, as well as their Glassdoor page, and decides that the much-maligned company culture of sixty-hour weeks and excessive stress is why Bucky has shitty posture and tension all up and down his pretty spine.

Facebook informs him that Bucky has a sister named Becca, who looks similar enough in age that Steve wonders if they’re twins. Becca keeps her Facebook locked, though, so Steve can’t confirm.

Bucky’s mother is named Winifred, and Steve feels very fond of her, as he knows how clean she keeps her towels. Winifred leaves comments on every profile picture in Bucky’s album, ranging from, “you’re so handsome!” to “beautiful boy!”

Steve doesn't disagree and privately feels that he and Winifred would get on like a house on fire if they ever met. Which they won't.

Winifred’s email address is winnieandgeorgebarnes@cmail.com. It’s listed publicly. Steve wants to give Bucky’s entire family (save Becca) a lesson in cybersecurity.

Bucky doesn’t actually use Facebook very much, Steve discovers. Every so often he’ll post a picture, and a few years back he checked into a couple locations, but it’s Instagram where Steve finds the real treasure trove of information, providing insight into Bucky’s life that Facebook can’t match.

A group of four people keeps popping up in various pictures on Bucky's page. Nice looking people. Friendly. Two women, two men, and after studying them carefully, Steve thinks maybe one woman and one man are married, given that they hug each other in the photos a lot. Most of the pictures Bucky has with them are close-up group shots at various places around the city. They go to a lot of street festivals and museums. Steve likes that Bucky has an active social life.

Bucky has artsy shots on his profile, too. Some of them are good, and Steve notices he has an eye for angles. There’s an artsy beach sunrise, geostamped to Virginia, which must be where his parents live.

Steve imagines Bucky getting up early. Walking out to the empty beach and waiting for the perfect shot.

Steve imagines himself there with him. Arm around Bucky’s waist as they walk to the beach together. Kissing on the sand, maybe. Laughing about something stupid.

Imagines other stuff, too. Entertains a brief fantasy of tying Bucky to the bed in his parents’ house. Waking him up with a long, slow blow job until he’s crying and begging to come, except he can’t because Steve told him to be quiet and still and good.

It’s a nice thought.

The further back Steve goes on Bucky's Instagram, the more bits and pieces of Bucky's life he gleans. Six months into the past, he hits pictures of Bucky and some _guy_. The guy is tagged, so Steve clicks into his feed and finds that his name is Evan, and once upon a time, he’d been Bucky’s boyfriend, only now he’s moved on to some redheaded guy who’s not half so handsome as Bucky. Steve thinks Evan looks like a real dick.

“Your fuckin’ loss, _Evan_ ,” he mutters, clicking the button to get back to Bucky’s feed, brows furrowing in a frown as he keeps scrolling through countless Evan shots.

Bucky took _so_ many pictures with Evan. Steve wonders if he was in love. Wonders if he cried when Evan ended it. He doesn’t know why he assumes that Evan was the one to end it, but it feels right. Because he can’t picture Bucky being cruel. Evan, though? Evan probably made Bucky cry.

Steve decides he wants to make Evan cry. And not in the fun way.

Eventually, the Evan Era ends, and Steve finds himself going on a series of trips with Bucky—Italy, England, California, Cancun. Some with the same friends he has now, others with different people, and sometimes alone, like maybe he was there on business. These pictures mostly feature some combination of a smiling Bucky, a beer, or a filtered photograph of some artsy-fartsy meal or landmark.

It’s a curated life, Steve knows, but it looks like a happy one. One in which Bucky’s loved and fulfilled. Which fits with the picture Steve’s started painting of Bucky in his mind. A guy who’s decent at heart. Raised right, by well-meaning parents. A bit repressed, pushing down his wants and desires out of some misguided sense of propriety. Someone who does what’s expected of him—good life, good job, good friends—without giving much thought to what _he_ might want for himself.

A people pleaser.

Steve can work with that.

Steve’s _already_ working with that. Thinks about Bucky tipped over his knee, mewling apologies for daring to move.

Shifting his weight, Steve sighs and reaches down to palm himself, dick half-hard and rising. Remembers once more the way Bucky had looked when he orgasmed—bright pink flush spreading across his chest, every inch of him shivering as tears trickled from his pretty eyes.

Christ, Bucky’s enough to drive a guy crazy, yet seems entirely unaware of his charms.

Or maybe he knows, and Steve’s being naive.

Wouldn’t be the first time a pair of big eyes turned him into a cynic.

Steve closes Bucky’s Instagram and goes to Pornhub instead. Tells himself it’s research for a new client he’s meeting the next day.

Doesn't let himself think about the fact that every video he clicks to get himself off features a crying brunette mewling 'please.'

 

* * *

 

On Tuesday morning at 7:00, Bucky texts Steve a photograph of a yoga mat and a water bottle.

Steve, who doesn’t wake up until eight, responds to the text before he gets out of bed.

 

> _Did you go last night or this morning?_

 

> _6am._ Bucky sends back a few minutes later.

 

Bucky’s a morning person; Steve’s hunch was right. He sends a smiley face and a _well done_ , before pushing back the covers and getting ready for class.

 

* * *

 

Wednesday, there’s nothing. Steve wishes Bucky would go to yoga again.

 

* * *

 

Thursday, there's an email with an attachment containing his test results and two hundred well-crafted words describing how much Bucky appreciated the artistry of the butt plug. The sheer filth of the descriptions Bucky puts forth regarding the way it felt when Steve angled it against his prostate has Steve blushing, and it's hard to tell if Bucky's being a smartass or if this is him genuinely trying his best.

In the end, Steve figures it’s probably fifty-fifty—yeah, Bucky’s earnest, but nobody’s _that_ un-self-aware, so presumably, he's having a little fun at Steve's expense, too.

That, somehow, is better than if Bucky had taken the assignment one hundred percent seriously.

Steve texts him.

 

> _Didn’t peg you for Shakespeare, genius. Where are you?_

 

It takes half an hour for Bucky to respond.

 

> _Sorry was in the subway fuck the MTA hi. I’m at work._

 

> _Do you have an office?_

 

> _No. It’s open plan. Why?_

 

Fucking corporate bullshit America. Steve scowls.

 

> _Any private space? Conference room?_

 

The three dots blink for a while before Bucky comes back with, _there’s a room for us to take phone calls. Door locks._

 

Bucky. What a champ. Steve fucks with him and leaves him hanging, because he has to get to work as well. He'd promised Natasha the night before that he would help her get a room set up for a wet scene with a client that comes in on his lunch break. Said client is into blood and piss in equal measure, neither of which is Steve's favorite, but then, he and Natasha are very different people. (Which isn't to say Steve _won’t_ piss on someone if he’s hurting for cash, he just doesn’t book those sorts regularly.)

It takes a little while for the two of them to get the room ready, with a plastic tarp secured to the floor and the furniture moved out of the way. Natasha, naturally, has been guzzling water like a champ since Steve arrived, and watching her is making his bladder ache, so he pulls out his phone to text Bucky instead.

 

> _Do you get a lunch break? If so, how long?_

 

Less than a minute later:

 

> _yes_. _Salaried but like an hour?_

 

Steve grins.

 

> _Get food—45 minutes. Then 15 playing w/yourself in the phone call room._

 

There’s no response for a few minutes, and Steve helps Natasha pick out some music in the interim, only retrieving his phone when it pings.

 

> _May I come?_

 

Steve laughs out loud. Natasha looks over from where she’s laying out her knives and raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry,” he says. “Just…hang on.”

 _No fucking way,_ he sends back, followed by: _good boys don’t get off at work. Hide your boner, I don’t care how. Text me when you get home._

Bucky’s reply is instantaneous: _ok awesome going to lunch now thx Steve :)_

Grin on his face, Steve pockets his phone, only to find himself being stared down by five foot nothing of redhead who thinks she’s way more intimidating than she actually is.

“What are you all smiley about?”

“Nothing,” he says. “You set here?”

“Just about. You have anyone coming in?”

“Yeah—Jack-Me-Off-Julian.”

Natasha grins because everyone knows Julian, who has been coming to the dungeon for years. His particular proclivities center on begging his dom—male or female, there's no preference—to jack him off while he's bound to a flat-top Sybian. No penetration, no touching, just lots of crying and whining and verbal humiliation. Steve's usually exhausted after two hours with Julian, but he always tips at least two hundred bucks. All the same, it's tiring, as humiliation's not Steve's favorite—he's never been into telling anyone what a slutty, filthy pig they are—mostly because there's a level of self-loathing in those who need it that he identifies with a bit too much.

“Ah,” Natasha says. “Have fun.”

“Mmm,” he nods, giving her a salute before stepping out. He has an hour to kill before Julian arrives, and he uses the time to do some of the routine maintenance and cleaning they’re all meant to take care of during their downtime, though few of them ever do.

That’s the thing most people don’t understand about his job. They think it’s sexy and mysterious and exciting, which it isn’t. Because at the end of the day, it’s just a job like any other. He has coworkers he likes, and coworkers he hates, and (for the most part) coworkers he’s indifferent to. A lot of his clients bore him, their fantasies either too pedestrian or so far away from his own personal tastes that he gets nothing from their sessions. Which isn’t to say he’s bad at it—in fact, he’s _exceedingly_ good at it, because his interest in humans and how their minds work stops him from being repulsed by certain things that might send other people sprinting for the door. More than that, he likes that he’s providing a service, and giving people an outlet for their needs. Shit, he wouldn’t stick around if he didn’t get _something_ out of it.

Most days, though, it’s just work. And it’s fine. But he’s not exactly creaming his jeans over Julian sobbing on the Sybian.

 

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t have an evening session, which suits him fine. Evening people are more masochistic, but he has a test to study for and the beginnings of a headache, so he heads home around five and sticks a frozen pizza in the oven.

(But, like, he’s not a monster—there are _vegetables_ on the pizza. It’s practically nutritious.)

Bucky texts him at six, while he’s attempting to make some headway with his notes and his textbook. He hates the class, so the ding of his phone is a welcome distraction, and he reaches for it quickly.

 

> _I’m home._

 

> _Alone?_

 

> _Roommate won’t be back until 7._

 

That gives Steve an hour. He can do a lot in an hour. Getting up from the kitchen table, he heads to the living room (read: other half of the room that’s the catchall for everything but the bedrooms in their shitty apartment) and opens his laptop, opening the spreadsheet he keeps of inspirational porn. (Never let it be said that he is not a professional. That shit is sorted into _categories_ —number of orgasms, number of participants, tears or no tears, and a one to five ranking of whether or not it got him off.)

Pulling two links—one featuring a violet wand and a prostate milking, the other a more traditional bondage and belting—Steve emails the URLs to Bucky and goes back to his phone.

 

> _Sent you some videos. Watch them both all the way through, then jerk off to whichever one you liked best. Don’t touch yourself until you’re re-watching your favorite, but you can come anytime after that._

 

Once the text is sent, Steve finds he can’t focus on anything except the knowledge that Bucky’s watching _his_ chosen porn. The videos aren’t long—twelve minutes on the electro-torture, nine on the belting—and based on Bucky’s history, Steve figures it won’t take him much time to beat one out once he’s through with both. (And isn’t that a fun idea: building up Bucky’s endurance until he can go hours [days???] before being allowed to come.)

The oven beeps, and Steve nearly burns himself while cutting the pizza in half and then in quarters, putting two on a plate and sitting back down with his book, determined to focus on the subject at hand rather than the subject _in_ Bucky’s hand.

Bucky texts him about ten minutes later.

 

> _Done._

 

Steve hadn’t asked for a picture. Bucky’s sent one anyway. Nothing identifiable—just his stomach, with a familiar trail of dark hair pointing the way from his navel to his dick. Steve can take body hair or leave it on most people, but on Bucky, he finds it sexy. Especially, ya know, with Bucky’s prick laying limp against the thatch of curls, spunk visible on the skin of his stomach. No six-pack to be seen, but Steve likes that, too. Imagines resting his head on Bucky’s belly. Feeling the rise and fall of his breath. Pressing kisses to his skin whenever the mood struck him. They could watch a movie, maybe. No need to talk. Hanging out would be enough.

Some crazy fuckin’ fantasy. Steve rolls his eyes at his own nonsense and taps out a reply.

 

> _Such a sweet boy. You in the habit of sending dick pics to all your business partners?_

 

> _Only the ones I like. :)_

 

Steve hates himself a little for getting so invested in an emoticon.

 

> _Which video did it for you?_

 

> _The 1 w/electricity._

 

> _Interesting. You want to try something like that?_

 

> _Yes pls._

 

> _I’ll think about it. Go clean yourself up before your roommate gets home._

 

> _Ok. Thx for letting me come have a good night!_

 

This guy—this _fucking_ guy—getting himself off to electro-porn and sending utterly earnest dick pics. Steve shoves nearly an entire quarter of the pizza into his mouth and lays his forehead on the kitchen table, counting to twenty before texting back.

 

> _Welcome, you too._

 

After that, he marches into his tiny bedroom and sticks the phone under his mattress. Goes out to his notes and lasts about two minutes before he’s back in his room, jerking it to the picture of Bucky’s stomach and jizz trail. He comes quickly, with a shout, and instantly feels as guilty as a thirteen-year-old pounding a pillow, anger and repression doing their old song-and-dance in the back of his head.

“Fuck me,” he mutters, wiping his hand on his stomach and kicking the wall next to his bed, which should have made him feel better but doesn’t. Just makes one of the Star Wars action figures from the shelf above fall on his head.

Fuck Luke Skywalker, too.

 

* * *

 

Steve's Friday-that' s-not-a-Bucky-Friday session leaves him wrung out and uninspired. He wants to go home, but he promised Natasha he'd help her out with her scene, which is a fairly common request around the dungeon. Lots of exhibitionists come in looking for an audience, and the doms can make more money if they bring in a second person, so Steve spends a fair bit of time in her scenes, ooh-ing and aah-ing over a client's torture as if it's something novel and thrilling.

The guy she’s with tonight is one of her regulars, though Steve’s not entirely sure of his name. Ryan, maybe? Roger? He can’t remember; it doesn’t matter. R-something is easy, all things considered. He’s an exhibitionist who’s into sensory deprivation, bondage, CBT, and being ignored. A study in contrasts, but aren’t most people?

In practice, this means that he brings his own noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones, which Natasha sticks on his head before cranking the volume on the Vivaldi album she keeps on her phone for such occasions. After that, she mummifies him in plastic wrap and invites a colleague in for a chat while they pretend he's not writhing on the floor at their feet.

It is, as they say, a living.

Steve admires the guy the same way he admires most of their clients—it takes a lot of guts to share the weirdest, freakiest thoughts in your head with another person, even if you _are_ paying them. There are assholes, of course, just like in any other profession. The assholes who come to the dungeon prey on fresh meat and inexperienced doms so they can top from the bottom. Steve's been around too long to fall for those tricks anymore—negotiation is negotiation, but if he gets a whiff of someone trying to direct the scene once they've started, it's the last time he works with them.

Unless, of course, he’s feeling particularly impoverished. Easy to put up with a lot of shit when rent comes due.

Natasha, on the other hand, has never met a qualm she couldn't overcome and takes on clients and scenes Steve can't begin to fathom.

“Hey,” she says when he knocks, unlocking the door and ushering him inside.

“Hi.” He steps over Whatsisname with an exaggerated yawn and goes to plop down on the padded table she’s pushed against one wall.

(Whatsisname moans and writhes and acts utterly _shocked_ that Natasha would do something so callous as to bring in a third party, as if it doesn’t happen every single time he shows up at the dungeon. That’s one thing Steve doesn’t get with some people—variety is the spice of life, and so many of their clients want the same god damn scene, over and over again.)

“How’d your session go?” Natasha asks, shutting the door, then kicking her high-heeled boot into Whatsisname’s stomach. It shuts him up, save for a muffled, “sorry, Goddess!” from behind his ball gag, oblivious to their conversation thanks to the music being piped into his ears.

Steve has to fight not to smile. Natasha _hates_ being called Goddess, but puts up with it when it’s a client preference. “Fine.”

“And your other thing?”

“What other thing?”

“Whatever thing had you smiling at your phone yesterday.”

Steve barks out a laugh before he can stop himself. "That's  …there's not a _thing_.”

“Mmmhmm.”

“There isn’t!”

“You only smile like that when you’re ordering something disgusting for lunch, or when you’re making plans to get your dick sucked. So which one was it?”

“A big, thick roast beef hero,” he deadpans.

“I guess if it’s a foot long and you can shove it in your—”

“Shut up, Nat.”

Natasha smiles, sticking her tongue out at an angle where the client can’t see it—never one to betray the persona she affectionately calls The Cunt, lest she stop attracting regulars who want her to reduce them to dust while they beg her for more.

Steve crosses his eyes and pumps his fist near his mouth while poking his tongue into his cheek, trying to make her laugh. He succeeds, and her mouth twists into a moue of delight before she turns away to get hold of herself.

“He can’t even hear you,” Steve points out.

“Yeah, but he can see me,” she says, clearing her throat. “And he’s not stupid.” Walking over, she rolls Whatsisface onto his back, placing her foot in the center of his chest. “Sure you’re not, Dick.”

Richard! That was it! Steve commits his name to memory as Natasha steps away, though not before giving his flagging erection a withering stare.

“So was it a cut hoagie?” she continues, attention back on Steve now. “Uncut? How many inches of meat are we talking?”

“You’re an infant.”

“Maybe so.”

"It wasn't—" Steve huffs out a breath because Natasha's not _wrong_. She knows him better than almost anyone. Knows that he has a bad habit of hooking up with any decently attractive person who looks his way. Like, suck jobs in bar bathrooms and frotting in the front room of someone's third-floor walk-up after the barest flirtation on Tinder or Grindr? Yeah, Steve's all over that. He rarely goes for full-blown sex, because that's a lot of work, and it's easier to get your dick swallowed by some stranger than to go through the whole rigamarole of romance.

“Wasn’t what?” Natasha prompts.

“I uh.” Steve picks at a loose piece of vinyl on the table. “I might’ve done something stupid?”

Nat raises a brow and crosses her arms over her chest. “Mmm?”

“So there’s this guy…?”

There it is: Natasha’s scariest grin. The one that makes her look like a hungry fox, and no doubt makes her clients feel like tiny, frightened rabbits trapped in a hutch. Spotting it, in fact, Richard gives the smallest of whimpers.

“Jesus, that fuckin’ face,” Steve mutters, fighting down a smile of his own.

“Tell me more.”

“Well, uh. He’s. You know. A client?”

“Oh, _Steven_.” Delighted, Natasha steps closer.

“I know, I know! He’s just—he hits all the boxes!”

“I might be able to guess,” she says. “Are you booking him regularly?”

“No. He uh, he can’t afford to…I mean, so we’re bartering? For services?”

“Aw! Baby’s first off-the-books encounter.”

“Nat, I swear to Christ—”

“No, no, I find it adorable that you’re finally bending that rigid moral code of yours, Rogers.”

“I’m not!”

“Can I have five questions?”

Steve sighs and pushes a hand through his hair. Five questions, he can give her; he’s been giving her five questions about his conquests since college. Though at least it had been a back and forth in those days. Nowadays, Nat’s married. And super boring. “Fine.”

“Is he pretty when he cries?”

Damn it. “…yes.”

“Ha. Is he a masochist?”

“He’s coming around to it.”

“Uh-huh. Ahhh…and is he a mouthy little back-talking brat who tries to top you from the bottom?”

“He is not, no.”

“Thought not. And did he compliment your fine woodworking?”

Steve snorts. “Yes.”

“Figures. I don’t even need five—you’re so predictable.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“I’m a fucking mystery!”

“You’re _married_.”

“True. But I’m still an enigma, wreathed in secrets, shrouded in—hang on a second.”

Richard, who had been wriggling across the floor toward them the entire time Nat was asking questions, is stopped with a reprisal in the form of a nasty kick to the nuts.

“Fucking don’t you dare,” Natasha warns, meaning clear in her expression, even if he can’t hear her over the sound of the music and his moans.

Richard, wisely, doesn’t.

Natasha turns back to Steve. “I’m happy you’re smiling at your phone for something other than a twelve-inch roast beef hero.”

“Thanks.” Steve swings his legs back and forth, thinking through what he wants to say next. Because Natasha might be a sarcastic pain in the ass, whose favorite past time is busting his balls (along with the balls of many other men residing in the five boroughs), but Steve trusts her advice over anyone else in the world. Sam comes close, but Sam’s overseas, and Natasha is one wriggling submissive away. “I’m uh, we have sessions set up every two weeks. That’s what…that felt right, at the time?”

“Sure,” she says, turning so Richard can’t catch her face as it softens. “You’re not breaking new ground here, you know. I never would have met Wanda if not for—”

“I know. I just. You know how I feel about…” he waves a hand. “Mixing business and pleasure.”

“I do know how you feel about that, yes,” she says, then glances over her shoulder at Richard. “I think I’m gonna let him get himself off tonight, if you want to go.”

“Oh, sure.”

“Let’s grab a beer, though? Keep talking?”

Steve smiles, already feeling better. “Yeah, please.”

“Great. Dicky-boy never takes long—meet you at Morley’s in half an hour-ish?”

“See you there,” Steve agrees. On his way out, he fixes Richard with what he thinks is a very scathing, disappointed stare, in the hopes it will get him to orgasm faster. Natasha is nothing if not skilled at twisting Steve’s disappointment into something scathing that will help poor Richard come.

Which is, naturally, precisely what poor Richard is paying her for.

Morley's is a five-minute walk from the dungeon—a piss-soaked dive bar that's a holdover from when the neighborhood was twenty percent seedier than it is now, which is saying something. Steve ends up there a lot, sometimes with Natasha, sometimes with other people from work, occasionally alone. Depends on the night. The client. The way he's feeling about himself and his life at any given moment.

Stopping by the bar, he orders a beer and brings it to a sticky-topped table, where he pulls out his phone and once again debates whether or not he should text Bucky. There’s no _reason_ to, is the thing—Bucky hasn’t contacted him since they talked about violet wands the night before—but there’s no reason _not_ to, either.

Ultimately, Steve decides against it. Because it’s a Friday night, but not _his_ Friday night. This one is Bucky’s, to do with as he pleases. Steve imagines he’s out with his friends, or on a date, or doing any number of interesting things that don’t involve answering texts from his…business partner.

So Steve plays solitaire instead, recognizing the aptness while appreciating the distraction as he slides small cards around his cracked screen. Natasha arrives forty minutes later, looking every inch the tiny terror she is in combat boots and skinny jeans with a black tank top and a blue flannel button-down. Gone are the fuck-me boots and the mass of curls, along with the face full of vampy vixen makeup, replaced with a messy bun and skin scrubbed of its war paint. For Natasha, work means putting on a costume. Steve, meanwhile, is never anything but himself.

“You know,” she says, after grabbing a beer and making her way to the stool opposite him, checking out his screen and rolling her eyes. “They have these newfangled games that are actually _fun_. You can download them…”

“Sure, for the first ten levels,” he shoots back. “Then they want you to pay for them.”

“Not if you’re good.”

“Eh,” he shrugs. “My phone’s such a piece of shit, it doesn’t matter.”

“Don’t blame your phone for the fact that you drop it fifteen times a day,” she teases, swigging her beer and setting it on the table. “You got a picture of this kid, or what?”

“Uh, yeah,” Steve says. “Hang on. And he’s not a kid. He’s older than me.”

“Huh. Interesting.”

"Just…" Steve opens his photos because he _might_ have saved one of Bucky’s Facebook profile pictures like a creep. It’s a good shot—Bucky’s smiling, obviously in the back of a cab, with a pair of sunglasses pushed up on his head and a healthy tan. Like he’s just come back from someplace sunny. “Here.”

Natasha squints at the picture, then nods. “Yup. Story checks out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asks, taking the phone back.

“It means he’s your type.”

“I don’t have a _type_.”

“Yeah, you do. He’s it.”

“Nat—” Steve isn’t going to start an argument he can’t win, so he sighs. “He’s uh…new to this.”

“What, paying for sex?”

“No. Yes. That, and kink. All of it.”

“Ah.” She shrugs. “That’s not so unusual.”

“True,” he agrees. Bucky’s far from the first inexperienced person Steve’s scened with. Plenty of the people who avail themselves of professional services are too scared or shy to share their desires with their partners.

“But?” Natasha prompts.

Steve peels at a loose corner of the cheap, damp beer label and shrugs. “I like him. But I feel like I’m taking advantage of him.”

Natasha doesn’t patronize. Doesn’t jump in with platitudes and reassurances. Just nods. Sips her drink and shrugs. “That’s fair—you might be. What makes you think so?”

“The fact that he’s new, like I said. You and I both know what sub frenzy looks like.”

“Yup.” Setting down her bottle, she knocks her boot against his foot. “Did you talk to him about that?”

“Not—no. He’s pretty well-versed in the nomenclature, though.”

“Doesn’t mean he’ll recognize the signs.”

“True.” Steve pauses. “Do you think I should?”

“Do you really think that’s what this is?”

“If it is, he’s being pretty chill about it.”

“Hmm. Back up a little, maybe? Walk me through it?”

Steve nods, then starts taking her through the story, piece by piece. How it had begun with a very funny, obviously written-while-intoxicated email that he might have blown off as nonsense save for Bucky’s sheer, desperate, earnestness. How Steve had gone into that first session thinking Bucky was like any other client, only to find that the little whimpers and moans, combined with his genuinely sweet, well-intentioned demeanor had gotten Steve going in a way no client ever had before. To the point where Steve had been sporting an honest-to-God erection at work thanks to his very good boy with a desire for maintenance.

“Did you let him _touch_ it?” Natasha can’t resist teasing, swiping her tongue around the rim of her bottle.

“Shut up.”

“I’m curious!”

“Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to. You want me to finish this or not?”

“Yes, please.”

Steve tells her about the trade. The bargain. The business arrangement. All of which makes her laugh and call him a sucker, but shit, he was the one who made the offer.

He finishes with a few scant details about their phone call and their second session together, as well as a bit about Bucky’s extracurricular assignments. Once he’s done, he sits back and shrugs. “That’s pretty much it.”

Natasha’s been smiling for a while, which Steve takes as a good sign. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she says. “It doesn’t sound like frenzy, and it doesn’t sound like he’s pushing himself too hard. It’s not _conventional_ , but shit, when have we ever been?”

“You don’t think I’m putting him in a weird position?”

“Sure I do, a little. He’s imprinting on you like some kinky duckling, most likely. But that’s what happens—whether he met you at a club or at some munch, babies latch on.”

“Yeah, but—”

“You’re not making him any promises,” she continues before he can raise an objection. “And if you want to renegotiate later, you know how to do that. Whatever’s going on between you, it’s obvious you’re both getting something out of it.”

“I uh…I think I like him,” he admits after a beat.

“No shit.”

“No, Nat, I _like_ him.”

“Again, you’re not shocking me, Rogers. You wouldn’t be hanging out with him for free if you didn’t like him. Shit, I like _you_ and sometimes I still want to charge you for making me deal with your crap.”

“Asshole,” he says, flicking one of the damp label-paper balls he’s been rolling at her. “I just…you know, when this inevitably goes south, I don’t want him getting hurt.”

“Such a _pessimist_.”

“Pragmatist,” he corrects.

“When it comes to you, it’s tough to see the difference.” Reaching across the table, she pats his hand. “This guy’s not Brock, Steve. And he’s not Lorraine.”

“I know he’s not,” he says, maybe too sharply, so he forces a smile onto his face. “I’m overthinking it, huh?”

“Think about it a little,” she says. “Not too much. You want another beer?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says, and watches her go. He’ll get the next round.

 

* * *

 

The following Tuesday, Bucky texts Steve at six in the evening. Annoyingly, Steve is in a session—a medical play thing involving a vice, some electrodes, and a catheter—so he doesn’t get the message until nearly nine. When he reads it, he groans out loud.

 

> _I came_.

 

Steve leans against the lockers in the break room, tongue between his teeth, and texts back as quickly as his fingers can move across the keys.

 

> _Such a good boy. I was wondering when you were going to follow through. Tell me all about it._

 

He hits send and goes to change out of his lab coat and scrubs. The three dots are blinking by the time he's dressed, which means Bucky's awake and responding. Hallelujah. Steve hangs around for a minute, hoping a quick response is forthcoming. It becomes increasingly apparent that Bucky's typing a missive, though, so he grabs his bag and heads outside, and just makes it to the subway when the reply comes through.

 

> _2day is 3 wks since our 1_ _st_ _session so I was thinking about that all day at work. :) Wishing it hurt to sit down again so when I got home I put on the electricity vid you sent me and lay down on my bed like you wanted me to before. Tried really hard 2 make it last & made it almost 30 minutes which was really really hard. Do you think we could play with electricity soon? Does it really hurt a lot? _

 

Steve reads the message twice, right hand gripping the railing at the top of the subway stairs, buffeted by those few, annoyed late-evening commuters who have to step around him to get where they’re going. Bucky’s response isn’t quite the elegant, ridiculous prose of his butt-plug copy, but the sentiment shines through: he tried to jerk off the way _Steve_ would want him to jerk off, and Steve finds that pretty god damn endearing.

 

> _It can really hurt, though it depends on the intensity. I'll bring my kit on Friday, and we'll play with it since you're so interested. You should go to bed now. Do you have work tomorrow?_

 

The three dots blink, and Steve helps a lady with a stroller down the steps before running back up to see if Bucky’s replied. He has, and the message is replete with several happy emojis.

 

> _Yes I have work and yes PLS I want to try that! Is going to bed an order?_

 

Steve bites his lip.

 

> _Yes. Geniuses need forty winks._

 

Bucky doesn’t text back. On Friday morning, Steve sends him instructions for what to do when he arrives that night, then proceeds to spend the rest of the day fluttering about in anxious anticipation, like some demon-possessed butterfly.

Finally, the allotted hour rolls around, and he gets the message that Bucky’s in the room, waiting for him. Steve picks up his kit, and Natasha gives him a thumbs up as he heads down the hall, forcing the giddiness from his face before pushing open the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you all enjoyed a brief glimpse into Steve's head! Part five will be back to Bucky's POV, and features what happens when Steve opens the door.
> 
> Title comes from Dolly Parton's "Sweet Agony" which seems apt. Thanks to [awwtopsy](https://awwtopsy.tumblr.com) for a quick beta when I threw this at her today. Thanks also to [Lena](https://ellebeesknees.tumblr.com) for encouraging me to post when I really didn't want to.


End file.
